Delights from the Garden of Eden: A Cookbook and History of the Iraqi Cuisine

Product Details

Fully revised edition of the definitive source on Iraqi cuisine and its history First edition awarded the Gourmand World Cookbook Special Jury Award 2007 Originally self-published by the author in 2003, Delights from the Garden became an underground bestseller and award-winner. Now fully revised and updated, this new edition, luxuriously illustrated throughout with colour photos, paintings, medieval miniatures and sketches, displays the diversity of the region's traditional culinary practices, delicious and enduring. The book contains more than 400 recipes, all tested and easy to follow, and covers all food categories with ample choice for both vegetarians and meat lovers, and many that will satisfy a sweet tooth. Ingredients and cooking techniques indigenous to the region are fully explained. Unlike the majority of cookbooks, the book uniquely traces the genesis and development of the Iraqi cuisine over the centuries, starting with the ancient Mesopotamians, through medieval times and leading to the present, aided throughout by the author's intimate native knowledge of cookery. Of particular interest are the book's numerous food-related folkloric stories, reminiscences, anecdotes, songs, poems, excerpts from narratives written by foreign visitors to the region, and cultural explications of customs, all interwoven with the recipes. The book is supplemented with detailed menus and an extended glossary to familiarize the reader with the indigenous ingredients used in creating authentic Iraqi meals. The book is a valuable addition to the shelves of specialized and general libraries and a must-have for food lovers everywhere.

Delights from the Garden of Eden: A Cookbook and History of the Iraqi Cuisine

The following ISBNs are associated with this title:

ISBN - 10: 1845534573

ISBN - 13: 9781845534578

From the Publisher

Fully revised edition of the definitive source on Iraqi cuisine and its history First edition awarded the Gourmand World Cookbook Special Jury Award 2007 Originally self-published by the author in 2003, Delights from the Garden became an underground bestseller and award-winner. Now fully revised and updated, this new edition, luxuriously illustrated throughout with colour photos, paintings, medieval miniatures and sketches, displays the diversity of the region's traditional culinary practices, delicious and enduring. The book contains more than 400 recipes, all tested and easy to follow, and covers all food categories with ample choice for both vegetarians and meat lovers, and many that will satisfy a sweet tooth. Ingredients and cooking techniques indigenous to the region are fully explained. Unlike the majority of cookbooks, the book uniquely traces the genesis and development of the Iraqi cuisine over the centuries, starting with the ancient Mesopotamians, through medieval times and leading to the present, aided throughout by the author's intimate native knowledge of cookery. Of particular interest are the book's numerous food-related folkloric stories, reminiscences, anecdotes, songs, poems, excerpts from narratives written by foreign visitors to the region, and cultural explications of customs, all interwoven with the recipes. The book is supplemented with detailed menus and an extended glossary to familiarize the reader with the indigenous ingredients used in creating authentic Iraqi meals. The book is a valuable addition to the shelves of specialized and general libraries and a must-have for food lovers everywhere.

About the Author

Nawal Nasrallah, a native of Iraq, is an award-winning researcher and food writer. Her cookbook "Delights from the Garden of Eden" is acclaimed as the definitive source on the Iraqi cuisine and its history. Of her forthcoming books, soon available for purchase: Second Revised Edition of "Delights from the Garden of Eden", elegantly styled and generously illustrated with color photos (Equinox Publishing UK). Her book "Dates: A Global History" (Edible Series by Reaktion Books of London, 2011) is a charming account of the date palm and its fruit, fun to read. Also recently released is her chapter "The Historiography of Arab Cuisine: Issues and Perspectives", the first ever written about this subject, in Writing Food History: A Global Perspective (Berg Publisher, July 2012). She is a member of the Culinary Historians of Boston, and has been giving cooking classes, presentations, and demonstrations on the Iraqi cuisine -- ancient, medieval, and modern -- to culinary groups, schools, and libraries. Her English translation of Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq's tenth-century Baghdadi cookbook Kitab al-Tabikh, entitled "Annals of the Caliphs' Kitchens" (Brill of Leiden, 2007), was awarded "Best Translation in the World" and "Best of the Best of the Past 12 Years" of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2007. It also received Honorable Mention in 2007 Arab American National Museum Book Awards. Her recipes featured in many magazines and newspapers, such as New York Times, Boston Globe Magazine, and